What have I been doing? Working on the details of a project I probably have pitched to you several times. This is just another teaser to what else I’m going to be doing but expect more soon.
Why would I use ourFI?
- You see 12 other Access Points and they all have 4/5 bars.
- You hate paying 50+ a month for service you barely use.
- You’d like to share but don’t really want to share your personal network data with your neighbor.
- You like money.
Expect more info within a couple weeks, including product details, and a survey you can help me out with.
Brad
This was absolutely killing me for 1.5 days.
Fresh install, sawtooth processor load. What’s going on??
two NICs, one with a plug, one without. gimme a lease, gimme a lease…. ruining my day :)
FIXED!
Check out my live video stream of the head shaving event, I’ll update as we get closer…
Attending a conference as an attendee or sponsor of the show? How do you come off as not being the creepy sales guy? Here are my thoughts on how to make this your best conference yet.
- Be congruent with who you are. Only attend sessions that you feel you are interested in personally or your product might actually be able to help.
- Make it a point to meet as many people as possible. Please, please don’t think about how you are going to say your name when you meet them, just remember their name, one personal item about them, and what project(s) they are working on that you can help them with.
- Never eat alone.
- Always contribute to the conversation with either a true fact or introduce a person that could help that person.
- Have a pre-planned agenda of the sessions you’ll be attending.
- Research each speaker you’ll be seeing on the internet for at least 5 minutes. Find out a personal item about them that wasn’t announced in the speaker notes and be prepared to meet. Have something to say about an interest of theirs that wasn’t on the speaker notes. Follow note # 1.
- Have your business card but make sure it’s different than everyone else’s card. Have Bump ready to rock. Hashable. Something unique that makes you stand out from the 290481 other people that person has met today.
- Take frequent breaks to document! Dictate, write, or email your contacts and information you’ve gained — Look for a future post on organizing the process on meetings, teleconferences, etc. later.
Those are 8 things that were just on the top of my mind, any other ideas out there?
Do you know kids that have / had cancer? I don’t know anyone but if you guys do, I need someone to honor because it’s coming off regardless. Yup, shavin it Greg Rebbert style!
St. Baldrick’s Foundation is set up to raise money for the fight against childhood cancer. They have a very high percentage of money that actually goes into the research and care for the fight. The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity that funds more in childhood cancer research grants than any organization except the U.S. government.
I will be shaving my head next week to help fight childhood cancer. Please help in anyway that would be awesome.
Please donate:
http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/bradleynbaker
What song should I loose my locks to?
Unbelievable :) my face hurt from smiling at this!
I’ve got my VM working nicely that has a cakePHP system that incorporates a nice front-end with a radius backend to administer hotspots. Idea is to get this working with a custom build of openWRT ideally on hw that is deemed to be stable and have some features that I think are worthwhile - i.e. Gb ethernet, and MIMO N wireless signaling. Mostly this is about clearing my thoughts on what to do next:
- Management system allowing me to incorporate activations, billing, status, etc. Implemented now, but needs modification of rules to incorporate 1 rule: make it easy to share ourFI.
- Select router compatible with openWRT, the package coova-chilli, and finally pptp so that authentication of the remote router to the RADIUS server when you are behind a cable modem w/o a static IP.
These of course are just the generic first steps, my inital router purchases have been DD-WRT compatible, but apparently it’s implementation of chillispot is less than ideal.
Anyways, what’s the point of all this?? Well to make something that will allow people to share their wireless without talking to anyone, and get paid to do it!
update: tomatoUSB potentially might work for the router. I think that we are in uncharted waters here…
Catalina had been searching for me in the crowd, “THERE you are!”
Dag, discovered again! “Hey”
“What’s going on, are you having fun still?”
“A blast, I have to run, a friend is introducing me to this important art guy.” Hey, it could have easily been true.
“Find me when you are done!!” OK, will do island off the coast of California.
Now there wasn’t anything really wrong with her, she was (probably still is) a nice enough girl but the goal of the evening wasn’t to be at the 1869 Society’s Fall Fete’ and walk away with a phone number of a girl I wasn’t that interested in. Apollina was that girl, and this was the night I was to meet her - this is our story…
I was invited to the 1869 Society’s Fall Fete by the Xavier Equihua. “You HAVE to be there, it’s only the best party of the fall. Beautiful women, delicious drinks, a fun atmosphere. Oh and everyone will be there.” “Who is everyone?” I thought to myself, Xavier hasn’t steered me wrong yet so I’ll oblige. I wasn’t used to putting up 150 dollars to attend an event, especially when I didn’t really understand what the event was all about and only knew 2, maybe 3 people who were going. I signed up online, and following the instructions of Xavier, emailed Diana Kaw to make sure I was on the guest list.
“What do you wear to this?” I asked Xavier. ”You wear a tux. Don’t you have a tux?” Ha! Riiiigghht, I had just bought my first suit about 7 months earlier.
“I don’t have one, hmmm, should I wear my dark grey suit and a black tie?”
“Definitely not. I’ve got a backup that will work perfect for you.” A Ralph Lauren purple label no less. Of course, I was oblivious to what that was at the time but it was really quite nice, albeit a bit snug.
“Never have your bow tie perfect, always tie it sloppy like you don’t know what you are doing. It shows that you don’t care and opens you up for a good conv
ersation starter.” This guy was good, I doubt I would have been able to tie it perfectly anyways.
We arrived and valeted his Land Rover and walked in. Diana welcomed me and pointed us in the direction of the bar, “you can’t stand around without something to drink!” Xavier said, “Let’s go get a couple.” Within 3 minutes of standing in line Xavier had met 4-5 people, and said “Just get me whatever you are having” and wandered off. In front of me was Catalina, eager to meet me - probably due to my disheveled bow-tie and friendly demeanor. But this isn’t a story about her, it’s about Apollina Justina Casal Spoto and Bradley Nathan Baker.
Meanwhile…
Apollina was primping and prepping in her brand new top floor Arlington apartment, getting ready for the Fall Fete. She had never been to the Corcoran before and still wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce it. She was invited by Robert, a lawyer friend with whom she had worked on a case before. It was great of him to invite
her as she was relatively new to the DC scene and with Robert being so good at the meet-and-greet, she was sure to be introduced to many new people.
A few days earlier, Apollina decided to wear a dress that she had worn only once before (to prom!) and would buy a new necklace to give it a different look. Robert picked her up and they headed to Potenza for some light food and drinks.
They arrived at the Corcoran and before she knew it, Apollina had a glass of champagne in one hand and a delicious cupcake in the other. Although she wasn’t quite sure what to expect of the evening, she was having fun already. The theme of the night was A Nautical Affair and the exhibition, “Sargent and the Sea”, was beautiful. Apollina met up with two girls she had met the night before, Christelle and Kou and they had their picture taken together on the stairs for the Washington Life magazine. Robert, being part of the 1869 Society, knew a lot of people there and they spent the better part of the evening upstairs mingling. All the introductions were difficult to keep track of, so with a glass of champagne in one hand and her clutch in the other sat down to try and actually have a conversation while Robert mingled.
Xavier and I got our picture taken by Kyle Samperton around half way through the night. Notice the disheveled bow tie, the white wine (“Never drink red at a party, your teeth turn purple.” - Xavier) the big smile and happy crowd.
They wandered to the main floor and commenced meetnig new people again but the music had started to call her name. She quietly slipped away and made her way to the dance floor…
At this point I was still trying to dodge Catalina and spent a little time on the stairs to just soak in the cultured atmosphere. Then, there she was. Coming through the crowd on the dance floor. Wow.
What’s the first thing you notice? Besides her perfect hair, the sexy dress with cutouts on the side, and well-put-together makeup? The necklace.
Apollina moved through the crowd and made her way between the beautiful white stone pillars surrounding the dance floor. I quickly moved down the steps on an interception route coming from her back right shoulder behind the DJ tables.
“That has to be the prettiest necklace I’ve seen all night.” “Thank you.” We promptly shook hands and exchanged names — in proper DC fashion. I don’t recall a single thing she said at this point because I was completely taken in by her. Something about getting a drink and finding her date I think. Before she could leave to find him, he found us. “Apollina, I’ve been looking for you, you just disappeared!” “I’m sorry, I just wanted to dance and figured you were talking so you wouldn’t mind…” (Since then I have become all too familiar with the fact that Apollina has a mind of her own and tends to wander sometimes.) He gave me a look and with a, “Whatever” walked away. Apollina said it was nice to meet me and that she had to go make sure everything was all right with her date.
I thought to myself, “Really? What’s she doing with him?” He was tall, definitely older than Apollina, and his uptight attitude didn’t match her effervescent one. I had no idea what she was doing with this guy, but it didn’t really matter. I would definitely be back.
I walked over to Xavier and told him that I had just met the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, “You aren’t going to believe it”.
“I want to meet her then!” So off I went, determined to have another chance at talking to her and hopefully getting to spend more time with her.
“Excuse me, I just wanted to apologize to you for earlier, I didn’t mean any harm”, I explained to Robert. Truth be told, it wasn’t an authentic apology but it was a good way to get back to Apollina. Grumble grumble, he replied. ”Do you mind if I borrow Apollina for a little bit, I want to introduce her to a few people?” Grumble… mmm… hrumph. I’ll take that as a yes.
“Oh my gosh thank you so much!!” Apollina gushed as we walked over to grab a drink. “I don’t understand why he became upset, this is a platonic date, I think he just expected me to be by his side all night.”
We got our drinks and headed to the dance floor where we met up with her friends Christelle and Kou. Apollina introduces me to her bubbly personality and overflowing energy levels, quickly dancing figurative circles around me. ”I LOVE YOUR ENERGY!” I yell over the music. This was too much fun!
Then the music stopped. I did my best at carrying an interesting conversation with the three women while trying to not be overly excited (This was by far the best night of my life). ”I like this one, he’s fun and different” Kou told Apollina. “You two should make this happen.” God bless you Kou.
Xavier appeared and I introduced him to Apollina. He asked her what after party she was on her way to and she responded that she had to go somewhere with her date. We were going to the W and she was going to a different hotel bar. I had to make my move.
“Are you adventurous?” I asked Apollina, “What are you doing this weekend?” trying to get her to want to do something out of her comfort zone with me. Like, ride my classic 1976 Triumph Bonneville through Rock Creek Park perhaps. “Do you like motorcycles?”
“Motorcycles huh? Yes, I like them, but they’re dangerous! I’m busy this weekend, but here’s my number. Call me.”
Now that’s not the end of the story, we didn’t connect up that weekend, and I had a flight back to my parents home in the Pacific Northwest for a Halloween party and some vacation time. With Apollina running through my mind nonstop the two weeks I was away, I came back and tried my luck.
Two weeks, in case you didn’t know is “like two years” in hot-girl time; I’m still a little dumbfounded to this day that she remembered who I was with only 30-40 minutes of real interaction. So what was I supposed to do? I called of course, but got her machine - “Hello this is Apollina, please leave a me a message” wow she even sounds hot and intimidating in a recording!
Ummm, stammer, something about adventures and fun, and it being a long shot.
To my utter surprise I get a text from her, “I have you in my phone as Christelle, so I thought it was her calling me! What’s going on, how are you?” She really was that nice.
She agreed to a friendly lunch, and went on that adventure in Rock Creek Park on my bike the next day. It was an unusually warm November day, beautiful fall leaves and two people just getting to know each other. We had pizza at Paradiso, a nice walk through the zoo, then rode over to Eastern Market to eat some chocolate as the sun set to cap a perfect first date.
Here we are over a year and a half later, and we are still going strong - We are that crazy, madly in love couple, complete with schmoopys (our nickname for each other) and smooches in public.
All thanks to the Corcoran’s Fall Fete organized by the 1869 Society!
Celebrating our one year anniversary at the Corcoran’s “NOW at Night” 2010
My home network
It’s that time of year again; Time to freshen up the list of goals for the year. I’m going to spice things up and keep things measurable (as Buffet says - what get’s measured get’s improved).
- Complete 2 bible studies with Apollina
- Take at least 2 vacations for at least 4 days in locations of my choice that aren’t at a family’s home. Tropical preferred.
- Create income via adwords or some other website generated method
- Prototype and release at least 1 product of my choice to friends and family
- Volunteer at least twice for any amount of time
- Complete 3 triathlons of any distance
- Get to 12% bodyfat
- Call at least 1 friend not in the area once a week.
- Love Apollina; cause her love tank to be overflowing every single day.
